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Cryptography is infrastructure under change

Part I describes systems and their couplings. It ranks no country or operator and assesses no authority.

8 min read2 figures1 table19 notesNR-XTECH-CRYPTO-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1Cryptography is infrastructure under change
    1. 1.1 The questions this part answers
    2. 1.2 The argument
    3. 1.3 Twenty couplings between five systems
  4. 2Key findings
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
  7. 5Signature lag while key agreement migrates
  8. 6Readings from the other desks
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

1.1The questions this part answers

Key questions

  • Where is cybersecurity and cryptography risk concentrated?
  • Which couplings carry cybersecurity and cryptography shocks into other systems?
  • Which cybersecurity and cryptography capabilities hold under compound stress?
  • What must 2027 evidence measure first?

In this part

  • Narrative
  • Headline finding
  • Lead figure
  • Five footprint and governance chapters
  • Twelve-domain reading
  • Sector screens
  • Dependency matrix
  • Risk objects
  • Capability ladder
  • Scenario
  • Three lenses
  • Portfolio

1.2The argument

Cybersecurity is usually discussed as a contest between attackers and defenders. The 2026 evidence reads it as an infrastructure under change: the cryptography beneath every other infrastructure is being replaced, while ordinary vulnerabilities and ransomware keep producing most of the visible harm11315.

The standards evidence is strong. NIST finalised three post-quantum standards in 2024 and chose a backup in 20251236. National timelines exist: the NCSC asks for completion by 203510, and the NIST transition draft of November 2024 proposes disallowing quantum-vulnerable algorithms after 203544. A 2025 preprint lowered the estimated qubits for RSA-2048 to under a million, under stated assumptions22.

Deployment evidence is uneven. Key agreement has moved quickly where it is cheap, in browsers, content networks and secure shell2324. Signatures and certificates are harder, because they add size to every handshake23. Protocols built on messaging have added post-quantum steps2526.

The threat evidence is dominated by ordinary causes. Exploited known vulnerabilities, ransomware and fraud account for the reported harm131415. Cost and workforce evidence comes in part from vendors and is read as weak181920.

Figure 1.1How large are ransomware payments on-chain? USD million

Chainalysis estimates a fall of about 8% in on-chain ransomware payments from 2024 to 2025, and expects the 2025 total to grow as more payments are attributed. The 2024 figure was revised upward from USD 813 million. The series is a vendor estimate and covers on-chain payments only19.

ItemBar, scaled to the largest valueValue
2024, updated estimate892
2025, more than820

Source: as cited in the note to this figure. Year 2025.

Figure ID FIG-XTECH-CRYPTO-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-01-003

820USD million

2025 floor, vendor estimate19

892USD million

2024 updated estimate19

813USD million

2024 original estimate19

12.5USD million

ransomware adjusted losses reported to the FBI, 202415

1.3Twenty couplings between five systems

The cybersecurity and cryptography-centred matrix types the twenty couplings between the five core systems, read for their cybersecurity and cryptography content. Strengths are Nexus estimates (ESTIMATED) from the cited evidence and analogue events; they set the graph that 2027 evidence will test.

Figure 1.2Couplings between the five systems

Each line is one coupling from one system to another, drawn by the strength the edition assigns. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited evidence and analogue events.

  • Strong
  • Moderate
  • Weak

Source: this edition’s coupling matrix (Table 1.1); status Estimated.

Table 1.1Coupling matrix: from the row system to the column system
From, toWATENEFOOHLTBIO
WAT Water·WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link
ENE EnergyWEAK
control network dependence, undocumented		·WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
power for facilities, undocumented		WEAK
no documented link
FOO FoodWEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		·WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link
HLT HealthWEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		·WEAK
no documented link
BIO BiodiversityWEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		WEAK
no documented link		·
Strength: strong, moderate or weak; a Nexus estimate (status Estimated) from cited evidence and analogue events. The scale is defined in Annex A.

Transmission paths

  1. 01

    INF → DAT

    A capable machine would expose data protected by current public-key methods.

    Inferred RSA-2048 estimate22

  2. 02

    GOV → INF

    National timelines set migration dates for operators.

    Reported NCSC and NIST draft1044

  3. 03

    INF → FIN

    Exploited vulnerabilities and ransomware create cost and loss.

    Reported IC3, IBM, Chainalysis151819

  4. 04

    INF → INF

    Larger signatures slow handshakes and delay certificate migration.

    Inferred Cloudflare analysis23

  5. 05

    GOV → TRD

    Reporting duties and disclosure rules cross borders.

    Reported SEC rule and EU regulation2127

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 1NIST (ed.), Module-Lattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism Standard, FIPS 203 (publication page; final 13 August 2024; ML-KEM-512, ML-KEM-768 and ML-KEM-1024; initial draft 24 August 2023). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  2. 13POST-CLOSE, context only: CISA (ed.), Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog (catalogue page; 1,767 results at the read; newest entry added 2026-11-03). Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Arlington. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  3. 15Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internet Crime Complaint Center (ed.), 2024 Internet Crime Report (859,532 complaints; USD 16.6 billion losses, up 33%; 256,256 complaints with a loss; 3,156 ransomware complaints; 263,455 cyber-threat complaints and USD 1.571 billion; 4,878 critical-infrastructure complaints). FBI, Washington. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  4. 2NIST (ed.), Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Standard, FIPS 204 (publication page; final 13 August 2024; ML-DSA). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  5. 3NIST (ed.), Stateless Hash-Based Digital Signature Standard, FIPS 205 (publication page; final 13 August 2024; SLH-DSA, based on SPHINCS+). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  6. 6NIST (ed.), NIST selects HQC as fifth algorithm for post-quantum encryption (news item, 11 March 2025; backup to ML-KEM; draft standard expected in about a year; final standard expected in 2027). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  7. 10UK National Cyber Security Centre (ed.), Timelines for migration to post-quantum cryptography (guidance page; version 1.0, 20 March 2025; milestones 2028, 2031 and 2035). NCSC, London. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  8. 44NIST (ed.), Transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography Standards, NIST IR 8547, initial public draft (draft PDF, November 2024; Tables 2 and 4: for quantum-vulnerable signature and key-establishment schemes at 112 bits of security strength, deprecated after 2030 and disallowed after 2035, and at 128 bits or more, disallowed after 2035; the cover sheet added on withdrawal on 27 October 2026 is not used). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  9. 22Gidney, C., How to factor 2048 bit RSA integers with less than a million noisy qubits, arXiv:2505.15917, submitted 21 May 2025 (abstract page; under one million noisy qubits; under a week; 0.1% gate error; 1 microsecond cycle; 10 microsecond reaction time; the author’s 2019 estimate was about 20 million qubits in 8 hours). arXiv, Ithaca. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  10. 23Cloudflare (ed.), The state of the post-quantum Internet in 2025 (blog analysis; late October 2025 majority of human traffic with post-quantum key agreement; 3.7% of origins; 39% of top 100,000 domains in September 2025; ML-DSA-44 about 15 kB; first post-quantum certificates expected in 2026). Cloudflare, San Francisco. Vendor analysis of its own network, weak evidence. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  11. 24OpenSSH project (ed.), Post-quantum cryptography in OpenSSH (documentation page; sntrup761x25519-sha512 from 9.0; mlkem768x25519-sha256 added in 9.9 and default in 10.0; warning from 10.1). OpenBSD Project. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  12. 25Signal (ed.), Signal Protocol and Post-Quantum Ratchets, SPQR triple ratchet (blog post, 2 October 2025; ML-KEM 768; gradual rollout; formal verification). Signal Messenger, Mountain View. Vendor announcement, weak evidence. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  13. 26Apple (ed.), iMessage with PQ3: The new state of the art in quantum-secure messaging at scale (security blog post, 21 February 2024; Kyber-1024 and Kyber-768 hybrid with P-256; level 3 on its own scale). Apple, Cupertino. Vendor announcement, weak evidence. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  14. 14CISA and 22 partner agencies (eds.), Countering Chinese State-Sponsored Actors Compromise of Networks Worldwide to Feed Global Espionage System, advisory AA25-239A (published 27 August 2025; revised 3 September 2025; 23 agencies from 13 countries; known vulnerabilities; no zero-day exploitation observed). Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Arlington. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  15. 18IBM and Ponemon Institute (eds.), Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026 (landing page; global average USD 4.99 million, up 12%; AI-driven attacks up 56%). IBM, Armonk. Vendor report, weak evidence; the full report was not opened. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  16. 19Chainalysis (ed.), ransomware analysis (blog page; more than USD 820 million on-chain in 2025, down 8% from an updated USD 892 million for 2024; original 2024 estimate USD 813 million). Chainalysis, New York. Vendor estimate, weak evidence. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  17. 20ISC2 (ed.), 2025 Cybersecurity Workforce Study (page; published 4 December 2025; 16,029 respondents; 59% critical or significant skills needs, up from 44%; no workforce gap estimate). ISC2, Alexandria. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  18. 21US Securities and Exchange Commission (ed.), SEC adopts rules on cybersecurity risk management, strategy, governance and incident disclosure by public companies (press release 2023-139; adopted 26 July 2023; Form 8-K Item 1.05 within four business days of a materiality determination). SEC, Washington. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
  19. 27UNVERIFIED, not opened: European Union, Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 on horizontal cybersecurity requirements for products with digital elements (Cyber Resilience Act; in force 10 December 2024; reporting duties from 11 September 2026; main obligations from 11 December 2027), dates taken from law-firm search summaries; the Official Journal page returned no text. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 1: Cryptography is infrastructure under change. In Exponential Technology Report 2026: Cybersecurity and Advanced Cryptography (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-XTECH-CRYPTO-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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